The Hopkins-Nanjing Center hosts an array of interest groups and extracurricular activities. This semester, students are connecting in classes on calligraphy, ping pong, and erhu. Students are also enjoying interest groups like badminton, afternoon tea, chess, and Quiz Bowl. Below are a few highlighted groups.
To read about other interest groups at the HNC, check out the Connecting Through Hobbies blog from last semester.
 |
| Many HNC students at a recent happy hour |
Ping Pong Class
Ping pong tables are always set up in the HNC's west auditorium and are only taken down for events every now and then. Whether class has just let out or if students need a 20-minute study break, the large room usually emits the sweet sound of ping pong. Besides spontaneous ping pong matches, HNC students are able to take a ping pong class that is taught by a semi-professional player. The teacher and students meet every Sunday for practice, technique, and intense fun. Not only have students been able to let out their competitive side, but they also have built onto this storied cross-cultural activity.
Yang Shihan –– Since last semester, I've been attending erhu 二胡 classes. During this time, I've mastered two very melodious and well-known traditional erhu pieces— Liang Xiao 良宵 and Sai Ma 赛马, which gives me a great sense of accomplishment. Moreover, the erhu teacher's method is meticulous and she is very friendly, making our learning process enjoyable. In the course, we learned some basic techniques for playing musical notes, enabling me to practice independently and play other pieces that interest me. Overall, I find the erhu course to be excellent and I highly recommend it!
Peter Burds –– This semester and last semester, I have been in the HNC’s extracurricular calligraphy class, along with many of my Chinese and international classmates. Each week we meet for ninety minutes with our instructor, Teacher Yu, who guides us through that week’s characters in an increasing order of difficulty from 上 to 龘. My feelings in those first classes were of humility, as I quickly realized that I couldn’t even draw a straight line, let alone multiple straight lines, let alone have all of them come together into a cohesive shape that was worthy anyone turning their head to admire. However, seeing Teacher Yu’s careless mastery of his art inspired me to persevere and his always-jovial encouragement and clear enjoyment of both teaching and learning is an infectious reminder of the beauty and simple fun to be found in practice. So practice is just what I have done and by the time we had reached the end of the first semester, I could at last draw a straight line (and perhaps a bit more). My favorite lesson was when we studied the fu 福 character in time for Chinese New Year. As with any character there seems to be a thousand different ways to write. My classmates and I had a good deal of fun learning each variation and (subtly) critiquing each other’s style. Calligraphy has quickly become my favorite meditative pastime and I know it is something I will pursue with fervor for many years to come.
Jay Figg –– “What if we were pirates on the high seas?”
“And what if there was a cult?”
“Can we have dwarves?”
These are the questions we asked ourselves in the HNC Dungeons & Dragons interest group as we gathered at the beginning of first semester. In the first few weeks of class, I met two fellow D&D masterminds and we began planning this weekly interest group. D&D is a roleplaying game where each player assumes the role of a character of their own making and then creates a story with the other players while the Dungeon Master/Game Master acts as rulekeeper. Events determined by chance – whether your character can convince a guard to let them through, or whether they can snatch an arrow right out of the air – are calculated using dice. While it may seem complicated, it’s absolutely one of those games that you pick up while playing.
Our lively crew of D&D players meets every week for two to five hours of adventuring, mystery solving, and buccaneering. The whole campaign is designed to be easy to drop in and out of, so when academic deadlines come up, it’s easy to skip a session and return the following week. The players are still exploring a cluster of islands near the center of the map I made at the beginning of our group, so we still have a ways to go in this game. Next school year, I will be sure to invite/peer pressure others into joining our game!
